Our National Nightmare of Immigrant Hating Has Real Life Consequences

The thing about actions like the Biden administration has just taken, closing the path to immigrants from selected countries with bad governments to stay in the U.S., is that it has no positive political consequences either. If you are voting for Trump because you hate immigrants, this is going to do nothing to change your mind. You almost certainly won’t even hear about it or remember it if you do. If right-wing media even cover it, they will spin it in some lying way. Meanwhile, it really hurts people with no other options, not to mention shooting parts of the economy in the little toe anyway.

The Biden administration said Friday it would allow the temporary legal permission for migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaragua to lapse, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to find other methods to stay in the country or face deportation.

The decision comes nearly two years after the Biden administration began a program allowing migrants from those four countries to apply to stay in the United States for two years, as long as they had a financial sponsor and passed background checks.

The program was designed to discourage people from sneaking into the country by giving them a legal way to enter the United States. Now, the administration said migrants cannot extend their stay under the program, according to an update on the Homeland Security Department’s website.

“This two-year period was intended to enable individuals to seek humanitarian relief or other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible, and to work and contribute to the United States,” Naree Ketudat, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement.

So now what. How are those four countries doing today? How will deporting these people impact their lives? But hey, Americans now officially hate immigrants again….